


Unkissed

by 221b_hound



Series: Unkissed [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: First Kiss, First Time, Frottage, Hand Jobs, Hugs, John thinks Sherlock is asexual, Kissing, Lots of kissing, M/M, Merman John, Post-Reichenbach, and it's not Sherlock, but only one of them realises it, in a dream though, it's a veritable feast, sherlock and john are in a relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-01
Updated: 2013-11-01
Packaged: 2017-12-31 03:35:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1026777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/221b_hound/pseuds/221b_hound
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock returned from the dead a year ago. John returned to Baker Street six months ago. They've been in a couple since then. or at least, not NOT a couple. For two smart men, they sure can be dumb. Luckily, an art thief tries to drown Sherlock, Sherlock has a fever dream and things are about to change.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unkissed

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [不亲吻](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2070111) by [shawnordaisy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shawnordaisy/pseuds/shawnordaisy)



> OMG EXCITED! Lovesfic (me23) has created [a cover for the Unkissed series](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1174136) and the images are just perfect!!
> 
> MORE EXCITEMENTS!! Shawn has translated Unkissed into Chinese! [Read it here](http://www.mtslash.com/thread-114688-1-1.html) \- though you'll need to create a username etc to read it.
> 
> EVEN MORE EXCITEMENTS! See the endnotes to the link for Lockinjohnlock's new Podfic of this series!!

The Manchester case had gone very well, if you didn’t count the art thief trying to drown Sherlock in an ornamental pond. If, like Sherlock, you counted John kicking the goateed rat-faced git in the bollocks and downing him with an uppercut, _one, two, very neat, thank you_ , then it had ended well indeed.

Still, it was winter and no laughing matter to have swallowed a pint of frigid, dirty pond water, so after the local coppers had dragged the sorry bastard away for first aid and processing, John chivvied Sherlock back to their hotel room.

Bloody Manchester, John muttered to himself, as though the city were at fault for their fortunes.

In their room, John flicked on the kettle to boil while he neatly stripped Sherlock of his damp clothing. Sherlock smacked at John’s hands in protest, but John was both crafty and efficient at the task. He’d wrapped a blanket around Sherlock’s shivering shoulders and Sherlock stood there, clutching the wool to his naked person, while John poured tea. The cup was shoved in his hands for him to sip while John got the shower running.

Sherlock was shuddering with reaction by the time John whipped off the blanket and bundled him into the shower.  Sherlock complained, of course, that he was _fine_ , and about the tea, about the manhandling, but then he threw up swampy pond water and the mouthful of tea he taken, and in the subsequent, exhausting coughing fit, he decided not to argue the point further.

He threw up once more and with a groan rested his forehead on the tiles while John sluiced him down, soaped him, sluiced again, all very brisk and medically aloof. John’s steady hand on his chest, on his back and forehead and throat, were welcome all the same.

When John handed him a toothbrush, Sherlock used it carefully, the mint pleasant on his sour tongue, but the bristles making him dry heave. In the end, he used his finger to rub the mint flavour all around his mouth and rinse it clean. That felt better. Less like he’d licked the bottom of that damned pond, anyway.

John towelled Sherlock dry with the same detached efficiency. Sherlock was grateful for it, while at the same time something inside him gave a little whine, like he wished John would be a little, just a little, less detached. But John was always careful not to overindulge in their unspoken arrangement. They were friends. More than friends, obviously, they certainly crowded each other’s space and touched more often than mere friends, but they were not lovers. They had their own rooms. They did not kiss. They certainly didn’t have sex.

Sherlock didn’t know what they were. There seemed no words in the modern lexicon to cover it. They were just… what they were.

Sherlock submitted to John helping him into pyjama bottoms and a T-shirt, and thence into bed. The blankets pulled up to his neck were warm and welcome and he burrowed down into them.

“Take these,” John held out pills in his palm. Sherlock lipped them straight off the doctor’s skin, then swallowed from the glass John held to his mouth. Sherlock coughed, sighed, subsided into the bedding. John brushed his hair back then pressed his palm to Sherlock’s forehead.

“Little bit of a temperature. I think you’ll be okay. I’ve got a bucket here, in case you need to vomit again.”

Sherlock groaned.

“Yeah, the paracetamol might make you feel a bit queasy. Just try to keep them down. I’ve got an eye on you. You’ll be all right.”

Sherlock shuddered, burrowed further into the blankets and tried not to feel sick when John got gingerly into the other side of the king bed. John, he thought blearily, had once more not protested when the receptionist had called them a couple and given them a double room. That meant something, he supposed. Even though they weren’t a couple, or not properly a couple.  Maybe they _were_ a couple now. At least, maybe they were not _not_ a couple.

Sherlock fell asleep to that pleasing thought.

_He was hot. Much too hot. Sweat-damp. Drowning._

Sherlock was drowning in a sauna, foggy and thick. Murky. He tried to follow the bubbles upward to the air, but it was _all_ bubbles, a sauna of champagne, _how awful_. He thrashed, gulping heavy wet fog, choked, and he began to sink.

But something touched him. Someone. Hands on his shoulders, fingers over his arms, guiding him up, up, to a watery light. He let himself go limp, trusting this mystery touch. The cool touch holding his arms; a touch firm yet gentle, and he knew now it was John, raising him above the water.

 _And lovely, oh lovely_ , John was a mermaid or rather merman, naked above the waist, below all soft gleaming scales and no genitals, which may have been a relief or a pity, but oh, yes, cool and steady and banishing the damp champagne-bubbled sauna heat. Sherlock’s face breached the fog and found relief and air, but John’s voice was nonsensical out here, no English words at all, but the hum and babble of that voice was exactly right, exactly perfect, and Sherlock was so entranced that there was nothing for it but to lean in and press his lips to that mer-mouth.

The babble hummed to a stop and merman John became still under Sherlock’s mouth, and Sherlock thought that was nice too. Still, calm, cool, fresh, _oh lovely, oh yes_ , and he reached up to thread his fingers through the merman’s hair, which looked like little fronds of yellow-brown weed but were silky under his touch. Nice. _So lovely_. And he kissed the John-merman again, happy little smooches, blissful and chaste, against that wonderful, mobile mouth.

And the merman hesitantly kissed back after a moment, making Sherlock smile and eliciting a joyful sound from the back of his throat as he kiss-kiss-kissed that sweet , responsive mouth. After a lovely little while, Sherlock drew back, his smile almost childlike. His eyes were closed and his fingers played with the merman’s silky weed hair and he said, in a whisper: “This is how I know it’s a dream.”

“Hmm? What?” The perplexing babble resolved itself into small words, John’s merman voice soft and low and steady.

“John would never let me do that.”

Sherlock opened his eyes sleepily to regard the merman and his one raised eyebrow. A tiny little garden of yellow-brown underwater grass surmounting the bluest ocean blue, sapphire blue, bluest blue eyes.

“You might be surprised,” said merman John.

“I might,” Sherlock agreed muzzily, “He surprises me… surprisingly often. You’d think he wouldn’t any more, but he does. But he wouldn’t do that. He loves me, but he doesn’t want to kiss me.”

“Whatever gave you that idea?”

“I love him, too. But we don’t do that.”

“That’s right. Not if you don’t want to.”

Sherlock frowned, his floating calm troubled. “Do I want to? I want to now. Maybe I do. Maybe I want to kiss John, but John won’t…”

“Shh. Go to sleep. We’ll talk about it tomorrow.”

Sherlock sighed and closed his eyes. The merman’s voice dissolved once more into babble, and his cool fingers feathered over Sherlock’s face like a breeze with intent, soothing and undemanding.

It was light when Sherlock awoke. The pillow was clammy and with a discontented grumble he tugged it away and shoved it towards his feet.

A snuffling noise beside him made him stop before throwing the blankets back. Instead, Sherlock turned his head.

John was asleep beside him, flat on his back but with his face turned towards Sherlock.  John muttered something unintelligible, his nose twitched and he made a little lip-smacking sound before sighing and settling back to sleep.

Sherlock stared at John’s mouth, with the distinct recollection that those lips had shaped words in the middle of the night. It had been dark, of course, but light had spilled in the window from the streetlamp outside. Sherlock didn’t remember sound, but of course he could read lips, and the images in his head shaped sentences that looked like “you might be surprised” and “whatever gave you that idea?” and ‘not if you don’t want to.”

Sherlock lay very still and thought about that, and about his dream of a rescue from drowning.  Mostly he was thinking: _Do I want to_?

A few minutes later John moved, kind of wriggled, huffed a bit, and his eyes ( _ocean blue, sapphire blue, bluest blue eyes_ ) opened.

“Hey,” he said with a sleepy, warm smile, “You look better. Less like a drowned rat anyway.”

“Thank you, John, yes,” Sherlock agreed in a neutral tone, “Much better.”

“You… ah. You were a bit restless last night.”

“I dreamed I was drowning.”

John’s sleep-crumpled face showed his concern. He reached out towards Sherlock’s cheek but stopped, his hand falling instead on the blanket between them. Sherlock looked at the hand in a manner both accusatory and disappointed.

“You saved me, though,” he admitted, “Well, a mermaid that looked like you.”

“Mermaid?” John smirked, self-deprecating and maybe also a bit annoyed.

“Mer _man_. We talked.”

John swallowed. Sherlock watched the rise and fall of John’s Adam’s apple.

“ _We_ talked,” John admitted, “But I don’t know that you remember it.”

 _Not a dream_ , Sherlock realised. _I kissed John and he kissed me and it was not a dream._

“I remember,” Sherlock admitted in turn, staring at John’s Adam’s apple, “I said you wouldn’t want to kiss me. You said I might be surprised.”

“Yeah. Ah. Sorry.”

That made Sherlock look up. “Sorry?”

“I didn’t mean to take advantage.  You were having a nightmare and I tried to wake you up. You took me by surprise when you kissed me, and then you kept going, and I thought you… and then I realised you weren’t really awake, so I…”

“I didn’t mind,” said Sherlock, “I mean… I started it, obviously. I don’t _mind_. I thought _you_ did.”

John’s brow furrowed in a confused frown. Sherlock rather like the look it gave John. Like a puzzled teddy bear.

Feeling brave ( _what a ridiculous notion_ ) Sherlock reached out and rubbed his thumb over the lines to smooth them away.

“Do you want to be in a relationship with me, John?”

Sherlock was not prepared for the look of outrage that manifested at that perfectly genuine question, nor the way the outrage morphed so suddenly into a sort of irritated good humour.

“We’ve been in a relationship for _months_ , you _git_. I love you, you love me; we just don’t kiss or have sex.”

Sherlock scowled. “How do you know I love you? I haven’t said it. And if there’s no kissing and no sex, how is this a relationship?”

John stared at him and then sighed. “Do you genuinely not think we’ve been in a relationship since I moved back in?”

“I…” began Sherlock. He stopped. Considered. “We’re more than friends. Of course. We… that is, you…” Sherlock grit his teeth. “If it’s a relationship, it’s hardly _normal_.”

“What about our lives has ever been considered _normal_?” John’s grin was more an affectionate grimace. “And since when have you cared about normal anyway?” He shook his head, but he was smiling, still in that slightly annoyed fashion, “Sometimes I don’t know why out of the two of us, _I’m_ the idiot. I gave up dating ages ago, before you even… before you came back. As if you didn’t know.” And finally the irritation disappeared, to be replaced with a tender patience, as though it had just occurred to him that maybe Sherlock really did need it to be spelled out. “It’s and you me, Sherlock. Just you and me, now and forever. And I knew you loved me when you stopped asking me to move back in.”

It was Sherlock’s turn to frown like a mildly irritated, puzzled teddy bear ( _though not a bear, obviously, that was John, he was a… this was a stupid train of thought_ ).

A year ago, Sherlock Holmes had returned from the dead. His triumphant reveal to his best friend hadn’t gone as planned.  John _was_ happy to see him, when he wasn’t nearly incoherent with rage or overwhelmed by a grief that Sherlock simply didn’t understand. John’s reaction continued for several weeks to veer wildly between fury, gratitude, distress, joy and profound, painful distrust. It was six weeks before he agreed to talk to Sherlock again, to hear it all, start to finish. To _listen,_ as well as shout.

It took weeks longer for John to not just understand but _accept_ that Sherlock felt he’d had no option but to jump from that rooftop, to fake his death, to disappear. To see that Sherlock was sincere when he said he’d done it to protect his friends for the long term, to protect John from Moriarty’s labyrinthine schemes. Well, also because he had wanted to win, to beat Moriarty even in death. Sherlock always had multiple motivations for his actions.

And it took Sherlock longer still to fully understand that, whatever his motives, he had put John through a terrible trauma. That in his desire to save his friend, he had almost broken him, and that it was not an acceptable trade-off. There was always _something_ he missed, and the ramifications of his mistake had been beyond what he’d calculated.

He simply hadn’t understood that John felt as strongly for him as he did for John.  Sherlock knew what he was doing to himself when he left, that feeling of having severed a limb, of daily bleeding out a little more, because it meant that John was safe another day. Safe to live and breathe and build a new life for one more day.

He’d had no idea that he’d left John bleeding out, day by day, as well. John had tried to build something new, and had faked it pretty well, even to himself, but underneath what looked like a man coping with yet another wrenching life change in a series of wrenching life changes was a man just working out how to breathe, to keep breathing, for one more day.

Sherlock’s abrupt return had been almost as devastating to John as his abrupt departure.

But they tried. They tried to rediscover their friendship. It took a while before Sherlock had his epiphany.

They’d had another of their meetings that teetered on the verge of what it used to be, then tipped without warning into awkward, and the pieces had finally fallen into place.  The pieces of what John had seen and endured, what he’d felt then and felt now and struggled to deal with.

And once he’d understood, Sherlock had apologised. There in the coffee shop, stricken with knowledge that had eluded him for so long, Sherlock had stared at John until John stopped speaking ( _stammering, not looking at him, half wanting to make it better, half wanting to run, Sherlock saw that now_ ).

Sherlock had apologised. Abjectly. Sincerely. Stammering himself, and voice seizing up. They had been talking about a murder in Soho, laughing about it until the atmosphere had suddenly become uncomfortable, and now there was Sherlock saying _I’m sorry_ and _I’ve been so stupid_ and _I wanted to keep you safe, I didn’t realise_ and _it’s no excuse, I’m sorry, John_ and _I can’t imagine how you can forgive me. I’m sorry. I’ll go._

And he’d risen, shaking, from his chair to leave, only to have John reach out and place his hand on Sherlock’s.

“Do you realise you have never said that to me before. _I’m sorry_. You’ve never said that.”

His hand had tightened over Sherlock’s wrist, and he’d smiled up, and Sherlock had never been so surprised in his life than to see forgiveness there. He hadn’t said it for forgiveness.  “Sit down,” John had said, “Finish your tea. Tell me about the hairdresser in Soho.”

Sherlock had sat, and told, and quietly marvelled that John hadn’t just beaten him within an inch of his life at any time in the preceding few months. Sherlock, right now, would have been prepared to hold John’s coat for him while he set about Sherlock with a blackjack, if necessary. But instead, they drank tea, and learned how to laugh together again.

After that, things were better. Their friendship was more often what it had been, except that John remained in his new, dreadful, tiny flat. John started coming on cases again. But in that flat he remained. For his penance, Sherlock swore he’d be polite to John’s awful girlfriends, only there didn’t seem to be any of those any more. So he brought stupid little gifts and John’s favourite beer when visiting John’s ugly bedsit; he made the tea on the rare occasions John visited Baker Street; and of course he tried to persuade John to move back to Baker Street every single chance he got.

John resisted and resisted a return to their former living arrangements. He took to laughing whenever Sherlock brought it up, but he steadfastly said **no.** Sherlock was aware that the laughter concealed an emotion that wasn’t at all funny, and a lot more like crying.

And then Sherlock stopped asking, and it wasn’t because he didn’t want it any more. He wanted John to move back in. He couldn’t bear the silence where there once had been, and should have been, John. He missed John’s presence, and the sense of his presence even when he was absent. Sherlock missed John’s tea, and his plain cooking, and his laugh, and his sardonic expressions and the scent of his aftershave, and the way he nagged about eating and sleeping, and the sound of his voice, and the sound of his breathing, and he missed him and he missed him and he _missed him_.  

But it was making John unhappy, this campaign, the underlying demand that John should do what made Sherlock happy. They’d already seen an extreme cock-up of what happened when Sherlock did things that he thought were the best thing for John. And John had already been so unhappy for so long, made so unhappy by Sherlock.  It was time to let go. Time to give John what _John_ needed, not try to make him do what Sherlock needed.

“I know what I did hurt you,” Sherlock told John that miserable day in the park, “I didn’t realise… but that’s not the point. I understand that. I miss you, John. But I know why you won’t come back.”

He had looked away from John briefly, to school his expression to neutrality because he didn’t want John to see how sad it made him to let go; it wasn’t fair to John, to use how he felt to manipulate what John should do. Sherlock finally saw that. “You really should get out of that miserable bedsit, though. You are clearly not happy there. Too many negative associations. I know someone in Mayfair, needs a house-sitter for a while. Could be a nice break for you, while you find something more suitable.”

Basically, for the first time that he could remember, Sherlock made a choice that was completely about John. John had watched Sherlock thoughtfully and agreed that yes, that sounded like a good idea.

John moved to Mayfair and house-sat for four weeks. Towards the end, he assured Sherlock he’d found a new place to live, and Sherlock didn’t push for details. John seemed relaxed again at last. More his old self. Happier. If happier happened somewhere that Sherlock wasn’t, Sherlock figured he only had himself to blame. That John was in higher spirits again was the important thing.

The day after John left the Mayfair house, he was at Mrs Hudson’s doorstep, with bags and boxes, grinning like the devil, asking about the spare room in 221B. Sherlock hadn’t known whether to cry, laugh or have some kind of fit. Instead, he’d opened the door wide and said: “I should probably tell you some things. Flatmates should know the worst of each other.”

“As long as my new flatmate doesn’t ever go faking his death for the greater good, like the last prize arse I bunked with, we’ll be good.”

“Oh, I can guarantee that,” Sherlock had replied, “Your last flatmate sounds like a twat. And a moron.”

“Oh, he wasn’t so bad.”  John’s blue, blue eyes had been luminous with something Sherlock couldn’t identify, “I think I sort of love the massive dickhead.”

Six months ago, that had been. Six short months.

Sherlock blinked at the cool, soft fingers on his cheek. John was smiling at him from the other pillow.

“And it’s when you did that – stopped hassling me to come back, found me a place, did something you didn’t want to do, for me, because you wanted me to be happy again. You did that and I thought, my god, he really does love me. And I don’t want to be anywhere else any more. So I came home.”

 _Being not **not** a couple, _ Sherlock thought. He’d known it all along. “But we don’t…”

“As far as I’ve ever worked out,” John told him, still feathering fingertips over those sharp cheekbones, “You don’t want to. With anyone. It’s fine, Sherlock. Lack of sex is not going to kill me. It’s not like I can’t take care of myself, if I get the urge. In the shower, I mean, or at night. I’m not having sex with anyone else, just because you don’t want to.”

Sherlock knew John masturbated, of course. In the last six months he’d heard, sometimes. He knew John loved him – he’d said as much, it was no mystery – but he knew (or thought he did) that John was straight and could not make that final step. That if he pushed it, John would leave again.  There was also the fact that Sherlock hadn’t had sexual relations with anyone in over a decade, and hadn’t wanted one, for all kinds of reasons. For six months – and much longer, if he was honest – he’d thought, _well, John is here; he loves me, and he’s here, so that’s fine. I don’t think I want to have sex anyway. This works. Really, this is perfect._

But he had literally dreamed of kissing John, many times. He thought about it awake, sometimes. Only rarely, but sometimes, he overheard John masturbating in the shower, suspecting John was thinking of him, and he would return to bed and masturbate thinking about John. It was pleasant , uncomplicated and safe.

_We are not simply not **not** a couple. We **are** a couple. We are actually a couple. A couple that doesn’t do anything sexually, and only marginally romantic, but yes. I love him. He loves me. A couple._

Sherlock wasn’t used to being the one who was slow on the uptake. He didn’t know whether to be relieved or annoyed.

But now there was this whole kissing business, and Sherlock hadn’t yet decided what he wanted to do about that.

“But don’t _you_ want to… to kiss. Have sex. I know you masturbate…”

“I.. ah…”

“You think of me when you do. I don’t _mind_ , John. Thinking doesn’t _interfere_ with me.”

“Fine, then yes, I think of you when I touch myself, of course I do. But you made it pretty clear early on that you don’t want that, and in the end I realised that that was okay. I tried being without you, Sherlock, even if it wasn’t my choice. When I thought you were dead, I had hook-ups and tried longer relationships; I had sex with women and sometimes with men; and it was all hollow and horrible. I hated it. So I stopped. I would rather be celibate and unkissed by you, and _with_ you, than having sex with anyone else.”

Sherlock wondered if he’d gone mad, and if going mad was supposed to feel this pleasant.

John had had sex with men. John would certainly consider having sex with Sherlock. Kissing him, at least. Sherlock still wasn’t quite sure that’s how he wanted to go, but it was a damned fine idea to consider, at least.

Sherlock brought his own hand up to cover John’s fingers with his own. John made to withdraw, but Sherlock pressed those fingers back to his cheek.

“John. Last night.”

Then he stopped because for the life of him he wasn’t sure what to say next.

John’s smile had returned. It was gentle, and undemanding, and not mocking in the slightest. Tender, really, if Sherlock had to put a name to it. John was smiling _tenderly_ at him.

“Last night, you kissed me, and you seemed to like it when I kissed you back,” said John, “But I can see you’re not sure about it. So. So, Sherlock. If that’s what you want, then yes. Yes, I want to kiss you too. But only if you want to. And it’s okay to change your mind, you know. If you want to try, and you don’t like it, we’ll stop. If you want something else, we’ll try it, and if you don’t want it, we’ll stop. I’ve been living celibate and in love with you as a deliberate choice since I moved back in. If you want to try anything, just tell me. Tell me what you want, and when to stop. It’s all fine, Sherlock. I love you, you love me, and everything else we can negotiate.”

It was a lot of data to absorb. So many possibilities. Sherlock had been avoiding this whole terrible minefield since university, and those dreadful experiences during his years as an addict. He had no idea what he wanted.

Except.

Yes. Kissing John. That, he wanted to try. Now that John said he wanted to as well. It was allowed. And maybe after, his curiosity would be sated and he wouldn’t want to again. And maybe he would. It was interesting not to know the answer to something.

It was more interesting to find out.

He reached out to cup John’s face, and said: “I want to kiss you.”

“All right then. Okay. All right.” The John laughed at his own nervousness. Looking a bit dazed and pretty pleased but also cautious, he leaned towards Sherlock, while Sherlock leaned towards him.

Their closed lips met, softly, hardly any pressure, and Sherlock felt certain that John was giving him every opportunity to change his mind. Well, damn that thinking. That was no way to properly conduct an experiment. Sherlock pushed harder, feeling the warmth of John’s mouth now, and it was just as lovely as he remembered from the dream.

_Not a dream._

This kiss began as chastely as that one, but then Sherlock’s lips parted, an unconscious choice on his part – he was trying to taste John’s lips, wondering what the texture of them might tell him, but in response John’s own mouth parted and then the chaste kiss became more exploratory, then deeper, then more intense. Sherlock led the changes, but John kept responding, and Sherlock didn’t want to pull away. Damn the experiment; this was fantastic simply as sensation. John’s mouth was fantastic.

Sherlock kept kissing and kissing John, and John, with a little whimper, kissed and kissed him back, and wriggled away from him on the bed.

Sherlock opened his eyes a crack and realised John was trying to hold his hips away, to remove his sudden and intrusive erection from the field of play.

John sort of whimpered against his lips. “S’okay” he said in a broken whisper, “Don’t have to worry about it. Can’t… I can’t help it… but you don’t have to... there’s no need… I’ll… later. In the shower or… later…”

And of course instantly Sherlock wanted to worry about it. Wanted to _touch._ Found there was a _need_ after all.

He pressed his hand to John’s stomach, fingers caressing warm skin under the edge of John’s T-shirt. “John. I want to touch you.”

“God. Sherlock…” John’s fingers flexed, moved down over Sherlock’s throat, but Sherlock wasn’t sure how he felt about that yet. Kissing, oh hell yes. Touch John, my, yes. This once at least. But to _be_ touched… That was still a grey area.

“Don’t touch me. I want to touch you, though.”

“F-fine.” John returned to kissing him and stopped wriggling away.

Sherlock smoothed the palm of his hand down John’s belly, over the front of John’s pyjama pants and John made the most beautiful sound, a whine and a growl and a sigh, and pushed his groin into Sherlock’s palm. Then he said something idiotic. “S-s-s-sorry. I…”

For a reply, Sherlock rubbed John’s erection through the cotton again, and found John made the same beautiful noise, and a third time, and then John kissed him with rather a lot of tongue, and Sherlock thought that was pretty wonderful too.

John’s beautiful, breathless growly, sighing whine grew higher in pitch and Sherlock was overwhelmed by the urge to _feel_ , to _see_. He tugged John’s pyjamas down, freeing John’s cock. Sherlock wrapped his hand around it, and he _watched_. He watched his own hand moving up and down the flushed shaft. He felt John shift at his side, pressing his forehead to Sherlock’s cheek, and they both looked down and watched while Sherlock rubbed, fondled, brushed the pad of his thumb over the sticky slit of John’s cock, making the head and shaft glisten with it.

“Christ, Sherlock. Sherlock. God. Please. Yes.”

John tilted his head again to press kisses to Sherlock’s jaw and throat, then resumed watching as Sherlock’s fist curled around his cock, moved up and down…

Sherlock watched, too. The thick, slick cock so hot and smooth in his hand, skin simultaneously hard and soft, the shaft rigid and the foreskin delicate, the crown like velvet. John’s hips jerking in lovely little bursts, in rhythm with the movement of Sherlock’s hand on him. The rapid rise and fall of John’s chest as he gasped for breath, the way his stomach muscles contracted and released with the building pleasure of it. John’s thighs parting, his heels digging into the mattress, his toes curling as climax approached. John’s cock thickening (as right beside his ear, John moaned and cursed gloriously and panted and chanted Sherlock’s name like a song) and then the pulsing of John’s fabulous cock in his hand, spurt after spurt of semen falling over John’s belly, his chest, Sherlock’s hand, his arm, while John cried out and called Sherlock’s name and finally fell limp and sated against him.

Sherlock looked at John’s spent cock in his fist, at all the come all over their skin. John pressed hot and languid against his side, and Sherlock wondered about all the time he’d wasted. He most definitely wanted to do this again. To make John make those sounds again. To have John say his name breathlessly and helplessly and reverently like that again. To have John writhing and thrusting and crying out and coming like that again. And again. And more agains after that. He had the distinct feeling that John would be amenable to this plan.

He turned his head to find John’s mouth and kiss it some more. John seemed amenable to that too.

But Sherlock was restless. His own hips wriggled against the bedsheets. He thighs ached, and his groin. He knew without looking how hard he was. It had been forever since he’d had an erection so very, very, very… pointed.

“Touch me,” he murmured to John.

John blinked at him. “You…”

“John. _Touch me_.”

“Are you sure?”

With a little growl of frustration, he grabbed John’s hand and guided it down between his legs, pressed it against the absolute certainty of his request.

John kissed him almost ferociously then, sucking on Sherlock’s lip, slipping his tongue against Sherlock’s, and he slid his hand into the fly gap of Sherlock’s pyjamas and wrapped his hand around Sherlock’s cock.

 For all the fierceness of the kiss, John’s hand on him was gentle.

“If you want me to stop, anytime, just say so,” John said, a little sob in his voice, “Just…”

“ _Don’t stop_. _Touch me._ God, _John_ , please…”

John withdrew both hand and mouth long enough to pull Sherlock’s pyjamas down, to bend down to kiss Sherlock’s flushed, dark shaft and its slippery crown (and Sherlock thought he might pass out from the pleasure of that, my god, kissing and cock touching _combined_ , John was a goddamned _genius_ ). Then John’s mouth was on his again, tasting… good, actually. Actually goddamned _wonderful_.

Then he was watching again, John’s hand on him, and that was as exciting as watching his own hand on John, but harder to catalogue, because the sensations were direct rather than observed. The warmth of that sturdy hand, the fingers caressing his balls as they dipped low on the shaft, the thumb slicking over the head on the upward pull.

And suddenly it was all too much. With a harsh whimper, Sherlock smacked at John’s hands. “No. Stop. Stop!”

But John had already stopped on Sherlock’s first shying away, before the No had emerged. He pulled away, and Sherlock convulsively clutched at John’s arm. _No. Stop. But stay. God. He’s going to give me up too insane to endure._

John, however, simply bent his arm to wrap around Sherlock’s chest and pressed a light kiss to Sherlock’s cheek. “Is this okay? I’ll move over if you need…”

“No. This is… it’s okay.” Sherlock closed his eyes and breathed deeply. John’s arm felt fine across his chest. Anchoring but not suffocating. The light kiss, and the next, were good. Undemanding.

“I don’t need to reciprocate, if you’d rather not,” John said, “I won’t be offended.”

Sherlock frowned and turned his head to peer at John.

“You don’t imagine I’ve spent six months _in a relationship_ with you without doing a bit of research, do you?” asked John, the slightest tease in his tone.

“Research about what?” Sherlock’s attempt at deadpan was defeated by genuine curiosity.

“Asexuality. The spectrum of sexual desires and drives.”

“I’m not asexual.”

John raised an eyebrow.

“Not entirely.”

“Spectrum, I said. But… well, I admit I did think you were right there on the pure asexual end of the line.  I concede I may have been in error there.”

Sherlock placed his hand over John’s then lifted John’s hand to his mouth so he could kiss his fingers.

“You did research.”

“Of course I did.”

“I _am_ a moron.”

“Sometimes,” said John, grinning.

“Lovers are not meant to agree with you when you’re being self-deprecating.”

John giggled and kissed Sherlock’s temple. “I thought you were deducing things.”

“You’re a terrible boyfriend, John Watson.”

And they both froze at that. Looked at each other. John’s face spread in a slow grin. “And you’re a terrible boyfriend, Sherlock Holmes. You didn’t even know we were in a relationship.”

“I knew,” said Sherlock, “I didn’t have a name for it.”

“Yeah,” John laughed softly, “I understand the problem.” He began stroking Sherlock’s hair. “Is this okay?”

Sherlock kissed John’s fingers again in the affirmative, and then considered his erection, which most definitely had not gone away. He felt _very_ aware of it. Of John’s proximity, and how he wanted his erection and John’s proximity to combine in some way. But John’s hand was too much. Sherlock couldn’t quite predict where John’s fingers would go next, and everything was too sensitive; _over_ sensitive. What began as pleasure soon became confusing and almost painful. Certainly, on those few occasions he masturbated, the aim had always been to make it as quick as possible.

He felt a pearl of pre-ejaculate bead at the tip of his cock, slip over and slide down his shaft. It tickled and it aroused and Sherlock thought he might go mad if he didn’t ejaculate soon. Preferably in some sort of contact with John’s skin.

But not his hand.

“I…” he turned to face John again. John was gazing at Sherlock’s hair as he petted it, as though he were in love with those dark curls all on their own.  “Take your clothes off.”

John obeyed without question, particularly as Sherlock was also divesting himself of his disarrayed attire.

“Kiss me.”

John obliged with a happy hum. He paused briefly to say: “If this is all you want, that’s fine, you know. This is lovely. I went to bed thinking I’d never get to do this, and here we are, and this is just…” He sighed and resumed kissing Sherlock.

Sherlock pushed the arm John still had across his chest away, up over John’s head, but did not break the contact of their mouths, so instead of asking about it, John just went with it. Sherlock nudged John back with hands and mouth. When John was on his back, both hands above his head as they kissed, he was grinning. Sherlock pressed his lips down John’s throat, down his chest, and John made a sweet sound. Sherlock made a note of it. For next time.

“I want…”

“Whatever you want, Sherlock. As much or as little. God. This is lovely, this. Just lovely.”

John’s cock was stirring again and Sherlock paused to watch it swell. He licked John’s right nipple to see what would happen, and the skin tightened under his tongue while John’s cock surged to attention. That was a pleasing combination. A lick of the left nipple produced a more pronounced effect. John was making a whimpering sound.

“Sherlock…”

“Kissing you, John, is brilliant,” he said.

“God yes. It is. Kissing is brilliant,” agreed John, eyes closed. He opened them. “It’s okay. If that’s all…”

“Shh, John.”

John shushed.

“I liked watching you orgasm. I liked _making_ you orgasm. I definitely think I want to do that again.”

There was that sweet little whimper again. John’s heartbeat was racing, Sherlock could see it in his throat and his belly, even in the veins of John’s now once more very hard cock.

“I haven’t decided yet,” said Sherlock, “About you touching me.”

“Sh-sherlock, it’s…”

“I said shush.”

John was panting, and that was as shushed as he was going to get right now.

“I want to try something.” Sherlock licked John’s nipples again, appreciating how they could pebble still further, and how John’s cock twitched in sympathy.

“Mmmmm,” said John, apparently losing the capacity for speech. His cock was slick now with beads of pre-cum swelling and slipping from the slit.

Keeping John’s arms trapped above his head, Sherlock rolled on top of John’s body. He wriggled, kissing John all the while, until their cocks were aligned. John arched up and then, gasping, forced his body to be still.

“Is this all right?” Sherlock murmured, pressing down with his hips. He undulated slowly, groin to groin.

“Ah, ah, oh god, yes, god, Sherlock, that’s, fuck, that’s fantastic. That is just fantastic.”

Thus encouraged, Sherlock began to thrust, slowly at first, then faster. John’s cock and his, both slippery, hot, so sensitive, slid against each other. John began to move his arms, trying perhaps to hold Sherlock’s shoulders, but that would be too much sensation. Sherlock pinned John’s arms back up and kissed him.

“No,” he murmured, “Stay there. Let me… just… let me…”

John stilled himself, his body quivering, and Sherlock’s hips rolled down, pushed against John’s erection. John’s thighs were shaking under his, John’s belly fluttering, his chest heaving. Sherlock bent his head to kiss John’s throat and shoulder, the tip of the bullet scar, the hollow under the clavicle. The salt of his skin was wonderful.

John’s thighs were straining with the effort to not thrust; his hands clenching and unclenching as Sherlock gripped his wrists on the bedhead. Sherlock loved the way that grip stretched John out underneath him.

Sherlock was so aware of it. The taste of John’s sweat, the feel of John’s skin where it was hard, where it was smooth, where it was hairy, where it was hot. Despite his best intentions, John’s hips were flexing upward, but Sherlock didn’t mind. That was just right. Just perfect. Chests touching, stomachs pressed close. Their cocks slid together. Sherlock felt his own bump against John’s tightening balls, the head of it brushing against John’s stomach. So much sensation, but he was in control of it. His weight bearing down on John’s skin. On John’s cock nudging his abdomen.

John’s breath hitched as he couldn’t help but push, now, up against Sherlock as he cried “Sherlock!’ and climaxed in shuddering bursts.

John’s voice, his thrusting hips, the burst of slick and slippery heat between them, the way John then tried to pull back again, to be still the way Sherlock wanted while whispering his name, _Sherlock oh god Sherlock,_ and it was that mindfulness that somehow tipped the balance. Sherlock groaned, thrust down against John’s willing body and he came and cried out: _oh, god, oh god, oh John John John John John John **John**_!

Sherlock came back from the dizziness and the nerve-tingling buzz of pleasure to find he was clinging to John’s shoulders, pressing kisses to John’s chest, and John was combing his fingers through Sherlock’s hair repeating “Oh, god Sherlock, god, that was amazing; beautiful. Are you all right? Tell me you’re okay, Sherlock. Please. God. Beautiful. You’re beautiful. Please. Tell me you’re okay. Are you okay?”

Sherlock wasn’t sure how he felt about being called amazing for orgasming, and he thought the latter one of John’s most inane questions ever. It was probably as well he had no breath to speak. He patted John’s hip instead, kissed him some more, and pressed his forehead to John’s cheek. “Shh.” He said.

John stopped caressing Sherlock’s hair, and stopped speaking. Stopped moving at all, except to breathe.

“I think,” said Sherlock softly, “I might want to do that again. Sometime.”

“Okay,” said John agreeably. Wheezily. Sherlock lifted himself a little then rolled limply aside. John was able to breathe properly again. Sherlock tucked himself against John’s torso and kissed his cheek.

“The kissing definitely stays.”

John grinned. “Good.”

“Making you orgasm. Yes. That stays.”

“T’riffic.”

“Me orgasming… that might stay.”

“As long as you get to be in charge,” said John. There was no irritation in the observation; rather a breathless joy.

“I like to control the level of input.”

“Mmm.”

“I’m okay, in case you still wondered.”

“No, I got that.” Another sappy grin emerged. Sherlock was glad John had his eyes closed, so he couldn’t see Sherlock’s answering one. Then he leaned over and kissed John again.

“Well,” he said, “I’d say that cements the whole relationship thing.”

John giggled. He looked into Sherlock’s face and laughed again, that joyous little kid laugh that always set Sherlock off, and it did now. He didn’t object when John turned to wrap his arms around Sherlock’s shoulders and kiss his hair.

“How’s hugging for you then?” asked John as the laughter subsided.

“I could learn to like it,” murmured Sherlock, his face tucked into John’s neck, “But don’t…”

“No sexual touching without permission. That’s fine. I like just… hugging. It’s…”

Sherlock heard the note in John’s voice change. The thickening of it. Like tears. He kissed John’s neck, his chin, shifted to drop kisses over John’s cheeks and nose. John started to laugh again, even as a tear escaped his closed eyes and fell into the pillow.

“Sorry,” said John, “I’m not normally such a nancy.”

That made them both giggle, snort, collapse in laughter again.

“If you want, when we get back home,” said John, “You can… sleep together. I mean. Just. Sleep. Doesn’t have to be sex. If you liked this. WE can.”

“Sh.”

John shushed again.

“I have to think about that.”

“Sure.”

“Your bed or mine?”

“Either. Both. Whatever  you like. You’re welcome upstairs with me whenever you want. I… just to be clear. If you want … anything. Any of this. Hugging. Kissing. Sleeping. Sex. Any of it, just tell me. We’re obviously shite at picking up the hidden signals, so let’s go for words, eh?”

“And when you want… sex?”

“I really like this bit, you know. The…”

“You can say it.”

“Not sure I can.”

“The cuddling, John.”

John started laughing again. “All right. The cuddling. I like the cuddling. I love the kissing. The orgasms are fantastic, however we have them, if we have them, no complaints. But…:

“I know. You would rather be celibate and unkissed and with me…”

John heaved a contented sigh. “Yeah.”

“I, on the other hand, refuse to do without the kissing any more.”

“Brilliant.”

“The orgasms aren’t bad. Within reason. Stop laughing.”

John kissed Sherlock’s forehead then lay back on the bed, grinning. Sherlock leaned over to kiss his nose, just because.

That night, back at Baker Street, John and Sherlock kissed goodnight on the sofa. For half an hour.

And then Sherlock followed John up to his room and they slept together. Just slept. Perfectly content.

 

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Cover for "Unkissed" by 221b_hound](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1174136) by [Lovesfic (me23)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/me23/pseuds/Lovesfic)
  * [Cover Art for 'Unkissed' by 221b_hound](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6121147) by [missmuffin221](https://archiveofourown.org/users/missmuffin221/pseuds/missmuffin221)
  * [Unkissed [PODFIC]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6525466) by [Lockedinjohnlock](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lockedinjohnlock/pseuds/Lockedinjohnlock)




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